India outraged at racist attack on Nina Davuluri

So what if Miss America Nina Davuluri has yet to announce chutney-soaked samosa as her favourite snack?

The Indians, including those who can’t tell Nina D from El Nino, are seething in just anger after the Indo-American was subjected to a vicious racist attack for not being a white.

The episode has upset a prominent cricketer-turned-pundit to such an extent that he struggled to make sense:

Oye Nina, chha gaya guru. Ignore yaar. Like a nun selling bun for fun, like a vowel lost in bowel wrapped in towel, like a pig real big eating fig...samajh gaye na? khataak!

There was a palpable sense of anger in Delhi, as evident from what this twentysomething had to say:

#$@&%*! ? I can't believe in this age, people fuss about complexion. #$@&%*! ? This is simply outrageous. Had it happened to me, #$@&%*! ? I’d have just told them: #$@&%*! ?, tu janta nahi mera baap kaun hai. #$@&%*! ?. Well, I got to go dude. Girlfriend wants a fairness cream and she’d be mad if I’m late, you see...

His sentiments found an echo in Mumbai where Bollywood’s reigning star had this to say:

This is shocking, I’d say much more shocking than a Sajid Khan film. I mean how can…hey, hey...where’s the make-up man? Idiot, you call this make-up? I’m not playing Dharamji’s Yakut in a ‘Razia Sultan’ remake. Paint me fair, stupid. Who brings these morons?

The mood in Chennai was no different as this Rajinikanth fan articulated:

Inge paaru, there is nothing wrong with Black. Rather I liked Black, even though it would have made much more sense to cast Nandita Das or even Kajol instead of Rani Mukherjee. What’s the big deal about being white, eh? Rajini Sir showed in ‘Sivaji: The Boss’ how to turn white. All you need is lot of orange skins, mud etc which you put in a tub and you immerse yourself under it for 6 weeks and...

Kolkata, a city renowned for non-violent outrage confined largely to words and gesticulation, was not lagging behind either. Sample this intellectually forthright outburst from a TMC cadre:

Dada, this is a common Commoonist conspiracy, notish the alliteration, to malign didi. No no, not Momota didi, but Nina didi. They are green with envy you see because she waan and green is the TMC colour, notished the paan? Arrey not the paan I’m chewing but the paan I’m spitting out. Paan re baba, P-U-N. Dhyatteri.

(Pix)